June 7, 2017Hi, Dick.Yes, I'm one of the distant alumni, up here in Joseph, OR, Oregon's first city-wide arts district at the foot of "Oregon's Alps."Keeping busy: I'm Chair of Wallowa County's mental health agency and of Wallowa Business that supports the Small Business Development Center.I have two non-business businesses. Art West Press helps prepare printed items for local authors, artists and nonprofit organizations. I've designed a number of books up to 670 pages, and countless posters, displays, etc. Then, Ed Ward Sculpture is a hobby, making bronze and pewter sculpture, and that gets sidelined a lot by the other volunteer activities: Rotary Club, etc., so I have only one bronze left on sale in a local gallery. There's a lot of interesting history, here, especially of the Nez Pierce, in which I have become very interested. I picked up the Native American flute 11 years ago, and it is a great meditation device for breaks in the volunteer activities and cultural events. Give my greetings to the gathering of fellow alumni!

May 8, 2013Hi, Classmates! We've moved again, now having lived in the four corners of the US plus the midwest. We're in Joseph, OR, about 1,000 miles from the Reunion. With the distance and a full calendar at that time, I'll have to sendmy regrets.

Joseph? It lies at the end of Oregon's scenic highway 82, one way in and the same way out. (I'll attach an image.) There are no traffic lights in the whole county (Wallowa) and not even a stop sign on the mainhighway. What there is: 1,000 people in the town, with nearly a dozen art galleries, many restaurants, a life-size or larger bronze sculpture on every corner of downtown Main Street, several dozen sculptors and painters, even more dozens of musicians, and four art bronze foundries within six miles. Ron and Marya Kindig are the only classmates who have visited us here; others are welcome to our two guest rooms. The summer is a non-stop succession of events like the county arts festival, car show, quilt show, a rodeo on the national circuit, mule days, Nez Perce Indian friendship feast and dancing, writers' and songwriters' gatherings, weekly free concerts on the Court House lawn (six miles away in the big town of Enterprise, 2,000 population) Bronze, Blues and Brews for motorcyclists and others, month-long exhibits of fine art and collectibles at the arts and culture center (of which I was one of the first small group to advocate it, but Marky got the hard work as secretary of the board).

The bronze is what first sent me exploring, here. In retirement I decided to dabble in three-dimensional art after spending many years as my own graphic artist, especially on the magazines I created and published. One business-to-business magazine went on for 20 years employing about 20 people. A couple of years ago the third owner ceased publication. Another magazine I launched, Mobility Management, is still in publicationby its third owner. Before that, I was a good underpaid citizen in non-profits and government. I was coordinator of information services at a midwestern college, chief clerk elections for the City of Los Angeles, took overa dying magazine in Florida and arranged an honorable merger, came into a troubled international literacy and development organization in Upstate New York and became CEO (working in eight countries and with 29,000 volunteers in the U.S.), took on a peacemaking and reorganization task at Planned Parenthood ofCentral New York, then came to San Diego County to start my own publishing business. Now, I seem to be as busy as ever as a member of the Rotary Club, board member of the county mental health agency, volunteer graphic designer for worthy causes (including campaign brochures for three political candidates; one won, two lost), doing book design and layouts for four local writers, playing a little bit with clay and wax to cast in bronze or cast in my studio in pewter. I have a clay and wax building behind the house, metal and wood working shop in the garage and a studio (which used to be the house next door) for photography, computer graphics, painting, quilting and other projects that we don't want to clean up every day. Since we took out all the interiorwalls, it is a good space for larger social gatherings (when we clean up) and space for some of our art collection that has overrun the house. So, things are going pretty well. Marky tries to keep me out of trouble, with which she has 54 years of experience.

New! 5-10-13Just an aside: When we finally decided to give up our Oceanside house and live year-round in Joseph, Marky asked, "What am I going to do there?"

Well, tomorrow, with the tourist season not started, here's some of what's going on:

The Return of the Chocolate Lover's Walk, May 11, 2013, 11:00am-2:00pm

4-H and Dressage Club Tack Sale, 10:00am-2:00pm

Mother's Day Art Walk, 3:00-7:00pm

Annual Pamper Fest at Wolfe Fleece, 3:00-6:00pm

Community Potluck at the Lostine Tavern, 6:00-8:00pm

Tunesmith Night at Lears Main Street Grill, 7:00pm We'll go at least to the last one where two traveling musicians play six or seven of their original songs and six or seven local musicians perform one song each.